Stories

EU launches inquiry into Qualcomm's $38 billion NXP deal

Raimond Spekking via Wikimedia Commons

The European Union said Friday it is taking a deeper look at Qualcomm's planned $38 billion deal to acquire chipmaker NXP. It said it will make a decision whether to approve the deal by Oct. 17. U.S. regulators have already approved the deal, but Qualcomm has resisted making concessions to secure approval in Europe.

Europe's concerns: The commission said it is worried that Qualcomm could bundle NXP's near-field communications technology with its strong baseband chip business or that it might charge excessive royalties over NFC. It also expressed concern about the potential of the deal to limit competition in the emerging automotive technology business

Qualcomm's response: Qualcomm says the two companies' technologies are complementary and that it still believes it can address Europe's concerns and close the deal by the end of the year.

Pedestrian killed by self-driving Uber in Arizona

A pedestrian was struck and killed by a self-driving Uber in Tempe, Arizona, early Monday morning, according to ABC15. Tempe police said that the vehicle was in autonomous mode, though a safety driver was behind the wheel at the time of the crash.

Why it matters: The New York Times notes that this could be the first pedestrian ever killed by a self-driving vehicle. Uber says it's closely following its incident response process, though it declined to share more details about what that entails. The company has also paused its self-driving cars in all locations (Pittsburgh, Tempe, San Francisco and Toronto).

“Our hearts go out to the victim’s family. We are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation of this incident.”

— Uber spokesperson

Background: A key question as police continue to investigate the crash is why the safety driver was unable or failed to intervene.

An Axios analysis of California DMV accident reports last year showed that humans cause most accidents that involve a self-driving car.

According to NHTSA data, which was collected from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, 37,461 lives were lost on U.S. roads in 2016, an increase of 5.6 percent from calendar year 2015.